My girlfriend and I met at the company I used to work for when I lived in the Houston/NASA area. I think the company has over 150 employees. The lower floor of the building got flooded and the higher floors got wind damage. All but about 20 of the employees are spread all over the country right now, but mostly in Texas. My friend said that the company (an IT company, by the way) did not have offsite backup servers and no disaster plan in place. She is VERY worried about having a job in 30 days and the company told everyone to work from home until further notice. She has no business working at a place like that so I hope this really encourages her to find another job.

Several of my old coworkers are up here in the Dallas/Fort Worth area and they are trying to call on the customers up in this area so she is off with other members of the sales team today. She called me 5 times for directions because she was lost (and I sent her off with a map, even), gave her my tolltag to make navigating these highways easier, and was trying to teach her how to text message during all of this. She is 52, I think, and I'm afraid she may be starting to lose her edge. Poor thing. She couldn't figure out that the "ON" button on the remote control would turn the TV on and that the "OFF" button would turn it off. I really really hope that this is just stress and exhaustion and nothing more serious than that. I'm sure she would find it very difficult to get another job in IT if she struggles with these relatively simple things. Perhaps that is why she hasn't found another job, yet? I'm really worried about her now.

I'm just going to love on her and try to make her time with us as stress-free as I can. I know that she is worried about getting her next paycheck and money so I am going to pay for everything while she is here, too. Well, except her dog. I can afford to feed and liquor-up another human body for a bit. There is this really cool bar/rec thing on the lake by the house. You can get drinks and sit out on the lake shore in lounge chairs with your feet in the water and watch the boats go by, the sunset and the moonrise. I am going to take her out there tonight and we can just relax and enjoy the serenity. And drink!